Search the Community

Hello everyone. Today, I will tackle a topic that seems to elude common forums such that if one needs all the information in one place, there usually isn't one. So - here is the 3 codecs explained in laymen's terms, and a few HandBrake settings that might be useful. H264: Released in 2003, replaced MPEG2, H263 and MPEG4 part 10. Pros: Really easy to run, has decent enough compression for use cases up to 1080p and was (at the time of release) more than twice as efficient as the older MPEG2 standard. It is also very quick to compress. Cons: Needs quite a bit of bitrate by today's standards to produce watchable content. Gets really blocky in lower bitrates, does not do well with color banding. For a 2 hour 1080p movie, a good H264 encode needs at least 10GB to produce good results. You'll usually see sizes upwards of 15GB though. H265 (8bit): Released in 2013, also known as High Efficiency Video Codec, or HEVC for short. It is a successor to all previously mentioned codecs. Pros: Much higher compression capability than H264, upwards of 2.5x smaller file sizes for equal quality compared to H264. Because of smaller size, it is suitable for use cases like 4K media and above. Cons: Needs dedicated hardware to run (all chips that came out in the last few years support it) and is quite a bit more expensive to compress resource wise. Compared to H264, same files with same settings will take upwards of 3 times longer to compress with single pass compression, and upwards of 5 times longer with dual pass compression. It still has some of that H264 color banding issues well. H265 (10bit): A version of H265. It's also known as H265 Main10, and it's known for its higher fidelity. Pros: Even better compression than H265 8bit without loosing quality, usually 5-7%. Does away with pretty much all color banding issues and masks video artifacts better in general. It is a clear step up from H265 8bit. Cons: 20-30% longer compression times compared to H265 8bit, Needs dedicated hardware to run. Anything from Kabylake (2016) onwards will run it natively. Rule of thumb: When compressing H264 video in HandBrake, you need 50% average bitrate for your H265 10bit encode to not loose any quality when compressing with a Medium preset and 2-pass encode. Arguably, videos will look even better since there will be no color banding artifacts (if original file had any). You can go as low as 35% original bitrate, but you will need a slower encoding preset, Slow-Slower. That will significantly elongate your compression times, more than 10 times longer than an equivalent H264 encode. In my experience, it's better to allow for a bit higher average bitrate. All that said, here's my preferred method. H265 10bit needs around 3000kbps avg. bitrate for a 1080p video at medium preset and 2-pass encode. That is 3mbps. I've done 2mbps runs and gotten excellent results as well. That means - if you have an H264 1080p video with 15mbps of data rate, you can get 90% of the quality with just 3mbps and H265 10bit. That said, a 15mbps 1080p H264 video is very high quality (in consumer terms), so I'd probably run the H265 10bit encoder at least at 5-7mbps to maintain it properly. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer them. For more in-depth info, click here: VP9 vs HEVC (h265) » Quantitative Quality Analysis | Bitmovin Something to look forward to in the future: Versatile Video Coding - Wikipedia A general comparison between h264 and H265 at different bitrates: H.264 vs H.265 comparison (1080p) - YouTube

Theoretically are they the same quality?

I was wondering about how much the new generation of encoders could manage while recording/streaming? I’d love to see streaming benchmarks or just a pass/fail rating of different settings, if such a thing exists. I’m thinking of the Nvidia RTX 40 series, Intel Arc and AMD RX 7000 series specifically. My current solution seems to do 4K60 at best (70% utilisation), but I’d love if one of the new cards could do 4K120 in either H264 or AV1. I presume they can, but where are the limits? It would be really neat if anyone knows the answer or can link me toward some data.

Hi everybody I'll explain my problem briefly: due to surging power bills here in Europe and the fact my current one is broken I wanna switch my Jellyfin/Emby media server to a Raspberry Pi. Unfortunately, new RBPis are sold out everywhere and so I'm stuck with an old one I have laying around (a B+ from 2014/2015). It's nice from a reduce/reuse prospective, but that board's SOC is of course old and slow, and won't support any kind of live trans-coding of video content. So i set myself up to convert my entire video library to formats which wouldn't need to be trans-coded by the server but could be played directly by the clients. The clients in question are a WebOS 5 TV (which thanks to LG's amazing OS fragmentation, will probably never get the Jellyfin app and that's why i'm also running Emby), various iOS and Android devices and several PCs (using the apps, I'm not interested in browser streaming). And here are my doubts (I'm kind of new to this all video trans-coding world). I would answer them by live testing the whole thing, but unfortunately my current media server is down for other issues and i would like to be certain of this strategy actually working before ripping out the Raspberry from its current use and setting up this new media server on it. MP4 H264 AAC 8bit seems like the safest bet, every sort of device seems to support it, but it's not as disk-space and bandwidth efficient as H265 and furthermore the latest version of Handbrake doesn't allow to take advantage of Nvidia's GPU NVENC encoder for it (i don't know why, after googling it out it seems that it used to be supported but that's no longer the case) meaning much longer trans-coding times (4 or 5 times as much, with my machine R5 3600 Quadro P4000). These factors are tempting me to go for H265, but while Jellyfin's forum has a table that would suggest that every device I use is compatible with H265, such information is nowhere to be found on Emby's blog/forum; my TV supports H265/HEVC but I came to understand (again not sure if true) that the app itself needs to be compatible with the format, it's not a given of the TV's hardware. Also, I've ended up in a Google rabbit hole of people saying that NVENC is garbage, that it destroys video quality and that shouldn't be used to re-encode stuff, others saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread...I'm kind of confused honestly. The main question then is: can i get away with H265 given the compatibility doubts, and should NVENC be seriously considered (both for H264 and H265)? If you could help me, that would be much appreciated. Thanks everybody.

Hi, Just been doing some encoding and testing different setting etc. Just wanted to get some feedback on which codec looks better for visual quality. Both clips are from the intro of Marvels Avengers and are 48 seconds long. Same video bitrate of 12000mbps. I understand that h265 uses more cpu then h264 but from my testing it works just as well on the devices I wish to watch it on. So which one looks more appealing to the eye? H264 or H265 http://bit.ly/2wUrH6n (I didn't want to upload to youtube due to it will trans code the video) Cheers.

We just tested a transcode from Phantom4 Pro 4k H264 to Cineform 4k on 3 different machines in the office. 4790k 4c/8t 4ghz was the fastest. 8c/16t 3.6ghz Ryzen 1800x next fastest. Xeon 24c/56t 2.2ghz slowest. What?! How do we get AME (Adobe Media Encoder) to use all available resources so we can offload transcoding to the most powerful machine? We are looking to invest in a dual AMD 7401 server for 3D rendering and I was hoping to use it to transcode also. With 96 threads it should blow through this, but our finding is that AME prefers clock speed over cores. Any thoughts or help appreciated. Willing to use alternative software as long as we can still use Cineform.

Hey folks I am in the process of converting my media library to HEVC in the idea of saving some space ( correct me if wrong pls ) Say I have a 2 Mbps bitrate h264 encoded video file. I am to convert it to a HEVC format with Wondershare Video Converter. Should I stick with 2 Mbps HEVC to retain clarity or Should I choose 1 Mbps because I heard HEVC occupies half the space compared to h264. In other words Consider h264 bitrate to be a variable { x } What bitrate should h265 be to retain same detail as the original h264 video ??

My specs: Intel i7-5820k overclocked to 4.4GHz (stable under stress) Noctua NH15 cooler fan 64GB RAM (8x8 sticks) EVGA GTX 1070 2 HDDs, 2 SSDs, 1 M.2 NVME SSD Corsair RM 650i (formerly EVGA G2 650 which I thought was faulty but apparently is fine) Latest version of Win 10, updated Use Bitdefender Total Security, updated and ran system check Graphical glitch screengrabs (attached to this post and link here): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jK40aQ8KA4XdF9C0aDt9K4lQqP3BmeiW Hi folks, Yesterday morning when I turned on my computer I got an odd bios message - something like, "Due to a voltage issue the system is not stable" and it was hanging on the American Megatrends boot screen - I rebooted and everything was fine. However, I started noticing a weird graphical glitch in my Chrome tabs at the top. I thought nothing of it and proceeded with my day. I do video editing work and when I opened Premiere and went to export a project it crashed. No problem, I thought - this happens, so I rebooted and tried again. Another crash. Eventually I realized that the problem was happening ONLY when I tried exporting H.264 clips. I tried ProRes and H.265 and it seemed to run through okay. (Tried exporting with software only, no CUDA, and same crash only for H264). However, I noticed that the H.265 file which exported just fine has all sorts of weird graphical glitches in it. I tried opening it up in Premiere as well as VLC to confirm those glitches are burned into the file and not part of VLC/Premiere. So my problems are: Premiere crashes when trying to export H264, then with intermitant crashes (sometimes on startup), only fixed by a full system restart. Weird graphical / pixelated rainbow stuff in Chrome tabs. H265 export came through with all sorts of weird blocky pixels and also small, sandpaper-textured tiny pixels (see top left corner of attached video image) My first instinct was that, paired with the odd power message I got that morning, there was a PSU issue. I live in an old building with crappy wiring and have had PSUs blow out on me once every three years or so. (I finally figured out the outlet I was using had no working ground connection - re-routed with an extension cord immediately to a working ground outlet so hopefully that helps). So I went out today and got a new PSU - installed it and found the same issue. My next suspect was my video card - so I ran FurMark at full load for like 15 minutes and everything was fine (monitoring temps and fan speeds with GPU-Z - all looked normal). Also ran AIDA64 for 20 mins at full CPU load, again, everything fine. Tried updating Premiere, no change. Noticed I was getting similar graphical glitches when looking at BRAW files in Premiere (but not my Sony A7S2 XAVCS MP4s) - tried uninstalling the last video-related plugin I installed (BRAW Studio, which allows you to import BRAW files into Premiere on PC) - no change. Updated my GTX 1070 drivers, no change. Note, all other video files I try to play in VLC (that I exported a few days prior) play just fine - as do YouTube videos. Similarly, for games, I played Mad Max at full settings for an hour last night, was looking for glitches, and didn't spot anything. If this was a GPU issue wouldn't it be popping up in games and all videos? Or maybe it's just something to do with the circuit that encodes and decodes video, and that's why the problem seems specific to Premiere and only certain, limited graphical things (like the see through areas in Chrome tabs). This is driving me nuts! Feels like it's a dumb Adobe issue - and yet, why is it carried through to Chrome (and, it seems, other apps that have some transparency in the windows?). And if it's a hardware issue, why wasn't it revealed during the 100% stress test? Any thoughts or advice - this is driving me nuts and I need to export projects for work ASAP - will to just go out and get a new video card tonight but wanted to check in here for some thoughts before I blow hundreds of dollars on what may be an unnecessary GPU upgrade. Thanks for your time!

I am working on a project that required transcoding bunch of h264 videos into jpeg. I did a test on my own 1050ti gpu, the testing video is 1080p at about 2.5Mbit/s. ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -c:v h264_nvenc output\%05d.jpg The result is about 90 to 100 fps. And now I need to build a server with AMD gpu (considering rx470, 480, 580) The videos would be uploaded from users, not longer then 15 seconds (450frames) I did a little searching, I think h264_amf works with amd gpu? But I dont have a amd gpu on my hand. So let me know how to enable, and how fast RX480 can be. Thanks

Hello! I am working on a project for my YouTube channel where I am using 4K video from a Fuji X-T3 camera. I use H264 codec and I am able to have a fairly stable workflow. I was thinking of upgrading my PC to a more modern CPU, and the 9900K comes up as a preferred choice these days. But I am not sure the "upgrade" would be worthed. The current water-cooled 4930K is a 6 core 12 lane cpu and uses quad channel memory, which I have 32 GB's of it. I also use a water-cooled 1080 Ti. The processor overclocks to 4.5 GHz. If I go for the 9900K it will have 8 cores, dual channel memory. But it will also give me nvMe compatibility, optane compatibility, accelerated h265 processing on Premiere etc. Anyone using a 9900k for video editing 4K h265 files? How is that experience? Is is smooth as silk or does scrubbing snags a little (which is what I am currently experiencing with h264, I can't even touch H265 because the processor doesn't have a built-in video co-processor on the dye. I bought this system in 2014 and I am still amazed that it is holding up so well. But those 4k video files are really tough. Any help would be appreciated.

Dear community, i am a little bit confused. I was already asking in another forum for recommendations, but at some point opinions were stuck. They recommended me an AMD 3900x.. but i am afraid of getting into the same situation as Phenom II a few years back ...but first things first: Budget: 700-1500€ Location: Europe, Germany what for (80%): Photo editing. Primarily with Lightroom, Photoshop and Capture1. Mainly 24 and 42 Megapixels, sometimes 62. what for (20%): video editing with 4K h264,8 bit multicam which was almost impossible with the current machine: Premiere and Davinci with a tiny little bit of AfterEffects should run smooth. maybe 10 bit in the future. current PC: i5 2500, 32 GB RAM, 500GB SSD, 560Ti nice to have: many SATA-Ports (8?...I have many HDD harddrives). hackintosh compatibility would be cool, but is not a must. overclocking? My main fear is having the same timeline problems in Premiere as now. And Premiere is the only editing-software that i can operate to a very good degree. Photoediting works kind of fine with the current machine. Most of my colleges and friends have built their machines 6-12 months ago.. they are almost identical featuring an oced 8700k (5ghz) and an 9900k. Both machines "feel" unbelievable fast compared to mine in tasks that i usually do or would like to do. Sidefact: if i can safe some money (buying an used system like 7700 or 8700k) or if i would be even fine with an laptop -please let me know! I dont need to have the latest of the latest just to get 5% better exporttimes. I am spending much more time with the edit. what experiences have u made? Is an 3900x (with GTX 1660 for example) fast enough to work smoothly despite the lack of QuickSync, or would it be wiser to buy any high frequency Intel machine and dont care about possible future implementations that could or could not happen.. thank you :)

I have an IdeaPad gaming 3i which ran 8k smoothly until I updated Windows recently after which I'm not able to do the same? I don't know why, but it's going 100% CPU, which did not happen before... Earlier CPU usage used to be around 30% with it...

Previously I have been able to play YouTube videos with minimal CPU load using hardware decoding. However all YouTube videos I now attempt to watch use the AVC1 codec which cannot be decoded by my hardware resulting in a video running at less than 15fps and at a 100% CPU load. I have attempted to use H264ify to force H264, however that has not succeeded. Atom Z3735F Firefox 59

Maybe this is interesting to some of you. I wrote a free and open source Adobe Premiere exporter capable of exporting x264, x265 and nvenc (h.264 and h.265) without the use of a frameserver. You can even queue render tasks. It is twice as fast as a similar frameserver workflow. NVENC encodes wil like 200-300 frames per second. Get it here: https://github.com/Vouk/voukoder I just wish Linus would test this on his most powerful rig.

Hi everyone, Having an issue here where I'm trying to playback 4K video from my GoPro in VLC and it's super choppy, more actually freezes and that's it. It's not a CPU issue as the CPU isn't pegged at 100. I tried it in the Movied and TV player in Windows 10 and it works perfectly. Any idea? I have GPU decoding enabled and I'm running a 980TI so I don't think it's related to that. Below is the Media Info for the file from the GoPro ormat : MPEG-4Format profile : Base Media / Version 1Codec ID : mp41File size : 3.09 GiBDuration : 7mn 21sOverall bit rate mode : VariableOverall bit rate : 60.1 MbpsEncoded date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49Tagged date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49AMBA : x VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : [email protected]<script cf-hash='f9e31' type="text/javascript">/* */</script>Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 1 frameFormat settings, GOP : M=1, N=15Codec ID : avc1Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video CodingDuration : 7mn 21sBit rate mode : VariableBit rate : 60.0 MbpsWidth : 3 840 pixelsHeight : 2 160 pixelsDisplay aspect ratio : 16:9Frame rate mode : ConstantFrame rate : 29.970 fpsColor space : YUVChroma subsampling : 4:2:0Bit depth : 8 bitsScan type : ProgressiveBits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.241Stream size : 3.08 GiB (100%)Title : GoPro AVCLanguage : EnglishEncoded date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49Tagged date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49Color range : FullColor primaries : BT.709Transfer characteristics : BT.709Matrix coefficients : BT.709 AudioID : 2Format : AACFormat/Info : Advanced Audio CodecFormat profile : LCCodec ID : 40Duration : 7mn 21sBit rate mode : ConstantBit rate : 128 KbpsChannel(s) : 2 channelsChannel positions : Front: L RSampling rate : 48.0 KHzCompression mode : LossyStream size : 6.73 MiB (0%)Title : GoPro AACLanguage : EnglishEncoded date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49Tagged date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49 Other #1ID : 3Type : Time codeFormat : QuickTime TCDuration : 7mn 21sTitle : GoPro TCDLanguage : EnglishEncoded date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49Tagged date : UTC 2015-07-02 18:24:49 Other #2Type : Time codeTime code of first frame : 18:23:52:12Time code, striped : YesBit rate mode : VBR

Hello, im plan to buy the Elgato Game Capture HD 60. But i read that it increases CPU usage. On the Elagto Website https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/game-capture-hd60 they say it is a hardware based h264 encoder. So normally it should not use much CPU as i expect it will only save the encoded h264 stream via usb to the internal harddisk. Is that correct? Thanks - Jones

I have a very annoying problem where adobe premiere shows any MP4 footage as just a green screen. It's a pain in the ass. Seems alright with AVI or WMV but any MP4 content shows up like this: http://puu.sh/amAmC/2f3f36af0d.png are there any solutions for this? I've tried different Nvidia drivers and nothing's worked so far.